After five seasons and 62 episodes of meth, murder and mayhem, "Breaking Bad" came to a bloody end Sunday night with science teacher-turned-crime lord Walter White dead, and his former protege, Jesse, on the run.

The AMC series wrapped things up in a riveting, brilliantly conceived 75-minute series finale titled "Felina," written and directed by "Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan. It was an episode that had Walter (Bryan Cranston) more or less ending things on his own terms and the show cementing its legacy as one of the greatest TV dramas ever.

This is how it went down:

Walt headed to meet with Todd and his depraved uncle Jack at their compound, where he appeared to be walking into a trap. But, as usual, Walt was one step ahead of the game. He had rigged that infamous M-60 in his trunk to be a remote-controlled killing machine. After he tackled Jesse to get him below the firing line, Walt triggered the M-60 to pop out of the trunk and light the place up like Fourth of July.

The result? A neo-Nazi bloodbath that left all of the gang dead except for, as fate would have it, Todd and his uncle.

The beleaguered Jesse got his revenge by choking Todd to death with the chains that had held him captive. And Walt, quite fittingly, put a bullet in the head of the man who had so coldly killed his brother-in-law, Hank.

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That left Walt and Jesse to face off one last time.

Walt slid a pistol across the floor to Jesse, giving his one-time partner a chance take his life.

"Do it," Walt ordered. A trembling Jesse, however, dropped the gun and told Walt to do it himself before fleeing the scene.

But the man infamously known as Heisenberg didn't need to pull the trigger. With his gut already spewing blood from a stray M-60 bullet, he took a wistful stroll through the meth lab he helped design, where he collapsed to the floor moments before the cops arrived.

As for that fateful vial of ricin? Walt had used it to take out Lydia by sneaking it into her drink.

Earlier in the episode, Walt assured that his family would be taken care of in his absence by forging a deal with Gretchen and Elliott to put what he had left of his drug money -- $9 million-plus -- in an irrevocable trust for his son. He made sure that the Gray Matter tycoons wouldn't back out of the arrangement by telling them that he had hired hit men to trail them. It was yet one more masterful Walter White lie.

Walt, knowing he wasn't long for the world, paid a final heartbreaking visit to his wife Skyler, now living with Holly and Junior in a tiny apartment. He gave her the lottery ticket numbers -- the GPS coordinates -- that would lead the cops to where Hank and Gomez are buried.

And then he made a startling admission to Skyler about his life of crime. No, he didn't always carry out his heinous deeds with his family's best interests at heart, as he had so often asserted. He did it for himself.

"I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really ... I was alive," he said.

"Breaking Bad" was a television rarity -- a show that went out in its prime. Ratings have been higher than ever for this final season, and just last week the show earned the Emmy as prime time's top drama. And as "Variety" noted, Sunday's finale was perhaps the most anticipated scripted TV event of the social media era.

Some random observations:

-- The song playing over the final shot of Walt lying in a pool of his own blood was Badfinger's "Baby Blue," which opens with the line: "Guess I got what I deserved ..." Perfect.

-- As distasteful as it might sound, I'm sure cheers went up in living rooms all over America when Jesse killed Todd. It was the finale's most cathartic moment, with the guy who had suffered so incredibly taking out the "dead-eyed Opie," who we had come to loathe.

-- Loved the one bit of humor in a mostly somber/melancholy episode: Badger and Skinny Pete as our so-called "hit men."

-- Walt caressing Holly in her crib one last time. Absolutely heartbreaking.

-- It was the kind of finale that was able to satisfy two camps -- fans who believed Walt should pay for his sins and those who wanted him to go out a so-called "winner." Both things happened. In the end, Walt's thirst for power had rotted his soul. He had nothing and died alone. But, taking the current circumstances into account, he went out the way he wanted to.

-- If you could complain about anything regarding the finale, it's that perhaps it was too neat -- how everything fell into place so precisely and so orderly. I really felt that when Todd and Uncle Jack so conveniently survived the massacre. Still, it's a minor complaint. And it does nothing to diminish the legacy of "Breaking Bad," which ranks right up there with "The Sopranos" and "The Wire" as one of the greatest TV dramas ever.

-- Vince Gilligan appeared on "Talking Bad" immediately following Sunday's episode, and he will be on Monday night's edition of "The Colbert Report" to talk about the finale. Quite a difference from "Sopranos" creator David Chase, who essentially went into hiding after that show's finale.

-- Um, so we're just wondering: Did Huell ever make it out of that motel?

What did you think about the finale? Did it live up to your expectations? Surpass them? Where would you rank "Breaking Bad" among TV's hall-of-fame shows?

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